Finally there is a "Facebook Phone". Wait it’s not made by Facebook, but instead Microsoft. Yes you heard me right. Microsoft just introduced a Facebook Phone – that’s what I’m calling it.

Today, Microsoft is introducing a new phone or smartphone aimed at the younger demographic and it’s called Windows Phone Kin One and Kin Two. It’s designed squarely for the Facebook user.

Microsoft has a strategic alliance with Facebook. In 2007 Facebook and Microsoft announced an search and advertising partnership, and that Microsoft will take a $240 million equity stake in Facebook at a $15 billion valuation. Under the partnership, Microsoft will be the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook, and will begin to sell advertising for Facebook. Now Microsoft is doing the Facebook Phone

The Kin One and Kin Two are web smartphones for young audiences build around social networking features, messaging, enhanced camera, music (via Microsoft Zune), and video sharing. What Robert J. Bach, the president of Microsoft’s entertainment and devices division, was really saying is …"We build a phone for Facebook".

These two new phones are part of the Windows Phone family and are differentiated from the recent Windows Phone 7 which I wrote about last month. The Kin One and Kin Two phones are built around their social-networking features which lets users send messages from and to social networks through one user interface.

Both phones have touch screens and sliding keyboard. The Kin Two has more memory, better camera, and shoots video in HD. This phone is clearly targeted toward what hard core media sharers or classic hard core Facebook users. I’m thinking like my 13 year old daughter.

There was a joke on Twitter that says "Microsoft built a phone for younger audiences because the older audience (the tech industry) knows what Microsoft’s track record is in mobile phones.  Microsoft is trying to make a comeback in the smartphone market while Apple and Google are clearly dominating.  In the past Microsoft has failed miserably in the phone business.  Microsoft ended 2009 holding just 8.7 percent of the smartphone market, down from 11.8 percent in 2008, according to the research company, Gartner.

Additional Services – Cloud Support

The Microsoft Kin phones are being supported by three cloud services: Kin Loop, Kin Spot, and Kin Studio.

Kin Loop provides a central place to follow contacts on Facebook, My Space, Twitter and Windows Live with constant refreshes.

Kin Spot is the ability to drag content from the phone’s screen to a “spot” which transports and shares the content with friends on your social network.

Finally the Kin Studio is the coolest feature. It’s a browser-based view of your historical activity or activity archive. Microsoft calls this your personal

“timemachine” which allows you to see all the content, photos, videos, and status updates that you made on a timeline. The Kin Studio allows you to upload all your pictures to minimize the local storage while providing a lightweight copy that is local for viewing.

Photo Storage – Sounds Like What Facebook Is Doing

One cool thing that I like is how Microsoft Kin is handling photos. Like I mentioned above they store the high quality photo in the cloud on their storage while keeping a thumbnail screen viewing quality image on the phone. This is similar to how Facebook is handling photos. It is also consistent with what Facebook learned a while ago – their users love photos. I interviewed Facebook’s Vice President of Engineering a while back and he told me this directly (here is the link to that interview part I and part II).

Handling photos and the sharing part is one of the biggest value propositions of Facebook and now Microsoft Kin.

My Angle: What we have here folks is the first ever Facebook Phone.